Foreign Language
A few years ago I wrote a post about my desire to learn the contents of an old letter written in a foreign language. The letter is among my grand-uncle Frank Flucawa’s papers and is written in Japanese. Why did he keep this particular letter? I asked him and he said it was from his brother, but he could no longer read his native language. Although, he remembered the contents of the letter and he kept it as a memento. After writing the post in 2020, I decided to try to learn to read the Japanese language myself so I could satisfy my curiosity once and for all. How did that work out?
Learning Japanese
There is a website and smartphone app called Duolingo that offers exercises to learn a variety of languages. They offer both pay and free models. I have been doing the Japanese exercises on the Duolingo free model for more than four years. I do exercises daily, usually no more than six. In four years I have trained on more than 1500 words in Japanese. Some of the words are shown using three different writing systems: Katakana, Hiragana, and Kanji. Here’s the thing about Duolingo, it is good for learning to read a foreign language, which is my primary goal. It is fairly good for learning to recognize the pronunciation of words because the exercises include listening to sentences and words spoken in a variety of voices. But, the exercises do NOT include learning to speak the words. So, if you want to learn a foreign language for conversation, then Duolingo is probably not the way to go.
Using What I Learned
When I thought I had a basic grasp of the writing systems, I decided to try to decipher some pre-printed Japanese on an old postcard I have. The postcard was sent by my grand-uncle, Frank Flucawa, to my paternal grandmother, Pearl Osborn, on the occasion of her high school graduation. At first, my reading of the characters made no sense. But, after a little research I discovered that at the time of this postcard, 1913, the Japanese were writing either vertically or right to left. Once I put that together I could now read the characters, “ki ga ha/wa bin yu” as “yubin hagaki,” meaning “Postal Service Card.” Not earth shattering, but at least I could read it.
I then attempted to read the old Japanese letter. Soon I realized the task I had set would be very difficult since the entire letter is written vertically, and by hand. Now I am doubting I will ever read this letter. So far, my attempt at the pre-printed writing at the top of the pages has given me nothing. I think it may be some sort of address, left to right the characters are:
“ichi da i sa mu u ji ra asa san” which could be “1 Greater-(area name) Asa-3” below is “ichi yo azuma” or “1 western east” which could indicate the cross-street for the address. Even if it reads right to left, it is still probably an address with location information. The Japanese addressing system completely changed after WWII, so making sense of this address without an historian is probably not possible for me.
Previous Post
- 2020 Week 5: So Far Away about the letter described in this post.
Conclusion
I believe there is a genealogical research benefit to learning to read a foreign language. I have ancestors from Germany and there are many digitized marriage and baptism records online that are in their native language. For vital records it may be enough to learn just a few basic words that are found in these sorts of records. From my experience with Duolingo, words for family relationships, dates, numbers, and colors, are taught in the beginning lessons. Give it a try, it could help with your research.
SOURCES:
- Profile for Frank Flucawa, ‘Osborn‘ family tree, Ancestry.com; https://www.ancestry.com/family-tree/person/tree/13493206/person/-60123976/facts
- Website: Duolingo, https://www.duolingo.com/
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This is interesting. Thanks for sharing.
While I was in my schooling years, I took Spanish and French. It was a challenge to learn. I can’t pick up as much if I read or heard the languages now days.
I’ve been thinking about switching over to learning German. Thanks for stopping by and leaving a note!